Good Old Fashioned Pie Crust

Who doesn't love a good old fashioned apple pie, peach pie, key lime pie, pecan pie, or any pie for that matter? I love making pies, but I love eating them even more.

Realsimple.com has a great "how to" article on how to make pie crust. I have to admit, I'm pretty lazy and usually buy my pie crust pre-made, but it never tastes the way my mom used to make it. Her homemade pie crust was moist, crispy, and absolutely delicious! I think I hit the jackpot when I came across this article, and I'll definitely be trying out the recipe soon.

The article tells me exactly what ingredients I need and then gives me seven easy instructions with pictures to illustrate each step. They make it look so easy! Even the headlines are simple. For example, "Add water"... how could I mess that up? Maybe they are making it look easier than it really is, but this article has convinced me to give it a try.

Websites can be very overwhelming. There are few out there that are well design, with the majority being cluttered and difficult to navigate. Whenever I'm researching a topic, it takes me forever to find my answers. I know the information is out there, it's just a matter of clicking through pages and pages of junk until I find what I'm looking for.

The Alaska Native Collection website, part of the Smithsonian, is one of my favorite websites. It is visually stunning, yet clean and organized. The homepage makes you feel peaceful and calm, something very difficult for a website to do these days. It has a beautiful image of mountains in the background, but they are greyed out so are not in your face.

The website is uncluttered and easy to navigate through, with a simple menu bar that lets you know what page you're on, easy to read typefaces, and an earthy, yet elegant color scheme. The few text and images are big, bold, simple, and clean. You can always find what you are looking for. No matter what page you are on, you can easily navigate back to another page. This website takes my favorite design elements, simplicity and beauty, and translates them into functionality.

Holiday Memories

Every Christmas, Coca Cola comes out with holiday commercials featuring the cutest penguins, polar bears, snowmen, and good old Santa Claus. They are trying to reach the "inner child" of every viewer and bring back fond memories from when we were young and still believed in Santa. I think their story does a great job of bringing out the holiday spirit in us all.

Last Christmas, I saw these Coke bottles on the shelves. I thought they were super cute, with their small, round shape and the images of snow falling and families building snowmen on them. They are something I would buy just for the package to keep as a collector's item.

I guess it's not very practical to have such a small bottle of coke, for probably the same price as a regular sized can. You're getting less of the product, but paying more for the package. Regardless, I really like the design and I would buy it anyways.